Australia fail to capitalise in Bangladesh

After having Bangladesh in big trouble at 5-117, Australia couldn’t press home their advantage as Pat Cummins melted down in the heat and spinner Steve O’Keefe turned in a very rusty performance.

When Australian spinner Ashton Agar had superstar Shakib Al Hasan caught behind midway through the second session, the visitors had a chance to dismiss Bangladesh for under 200 on a flat pitch.

But Australia’s attack failed to maintain pressure and Bangladesh’s middle-to-lower order batted wonderfully well to guide the home side to a good position at 6-253 at stumps.

For the second consecutive Test, Australia ran through Bangladesh’s top order but could not finish the job. At Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed to 3-10 on day one before a big stand between Shakib and opener Tamim Iqbal led them to an above-par score of 260 on a difficult pitch.

Yesterday it was wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim (62 not out from 149 balls) and middle order batsman Sabbir Rahman (66 from 113 balls) who rescued Bangladesh. While Sabbir took on the bowlers, Mushfiqur was impressively dogged, focusing on playing with a straight bat and eliminating risk from his game.

It must be said, however, that Australia’s attack looked increasingly lame, both literally and figuratively, as the day progressed. Australia broke from tradition to play three frontline spinners – the first time in 40 years that they had fielded just one fast bowler in a Test match.

O’Keefe was rushed to Bangladesh when Hazlewood went down, after initially being left out of Australia’s squad, and yesterday bowled like a man who was thoroughly unprepared.

O’Keefe’s trademark is his unrelenting accuracy, yet he laboured to find consistency in either his line or length. Too often he overpitched and allowed the Bangladesh batsman to drive him through the offside. At other times he dragged his deliveries down and created chances for the batsmen to slice him away off the back foot.

It was, by some distance, the worst O’Keefe has bowled in his nine-Test career, which has yielded him a good record of 33 wickets at an average of 29. Meanwhile, Cummins was badly affected by the 31C heat and sapping humidity of Chittagong.

After bowling eight overs in the first session, and then three more just after lunch, Cummins spent a significant amount of time off the field in the second session. Even after having a 20-minute break for tea, Cummins was unable to return to the field for the start of the final session.

Captain Steve Smith saved Cummins for the second new ball, with which he bowled three overs and looked heavily fatigued. This raised questions about Cummins’ fitness given that 17 overs is by no means a heavy workload for a paceman on the first day of a Test, even in humid conditions.

Cummins did, however, bowl gallantly on a dead pitch which offered minimal assistance to either pace or spin bowlers. Chittagong is the most batting-friendly Test pitch in Bangladesh.

The average first innings total at Chittagong has been 390 across the past ten Tests at the ground, and 420 from the past five matches. But any score over 300 will be a good return for Bangladesh given Australia’s poor batting record in Asia and their tendency to crumble under scoreboard pressure.

Australia had been in a position to roll Bangladesh for less than 200 thanks to some brilliant bowling by lead spinner Nathan Lyon. The veteran overcame the docile pitch to grab three wickets in the first session and a fourth just after lunch, before completing his five-for in the final session.

(AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

This continued a lucrative patch of form for Lyon, who has the sensational figures of 33 wickets at 21 from his six Tests in Asia this year. Those stats are especially impressive when you consider that, prior to that, he had averaged 43 with the ball in Asia from 11 matches.

Yesterday he earned four LBWs thanks to his testing length and deceptive changes of pace. The big improvement in Lyon’s bowling in India was his ability to trap batsmen on the crease, stuck between either going back or stretching forward.

Again yesterday, he found that same perfect length and exploited it by mixing up his pace considerably, sometimes by as much as 12kmh between consecutive deliveries. Agar, too, did a fine job of tying up the Bangladesh batsmen, sending down six maidens from his 17 overs, compared to O’Keefe who didn’t manage even one.

Australia need O’Keefe and Cummins to overcome their different struggles if they are to square the series at Chittagong.

Ronan O'Connell

Ronan O'Connell has been a journalist for well over 13 years, including nine at daily newspapers in WA. He now traverses the world as a travel photojournalist, contributing words and photography to more than 30 magazines and newspapers including CNN, BBC, The Toronto Star, The Guardian, The South China Morning Post, The Irish Examiner and The Australian Financial Review. Check out his work and follow him on Twitter @ronanoco

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The Crowd Says (71) | Page 1 of Comments

Aussies are certainly behind in the match. Cartwright will have to contribute with the bat as his bowling showed very little. Maxwell and Wade are hugely under pressure as well. Aussies shouldn’t have taken this tour so lightly

there is absolutely no way they have taken it lightly. They faired very well in India and were one good session away from winning the series. They lost the first test here by 20 runs against a side that are no longer minnows. They have been ultra competitive and are certainly not being embarrassed

Cummins got quite a bit of bounce with the new ball, and about twenty overs in bowled a bouncer which struck a batsmen on the helmet, square on the emblem.

Other than that, no swing to speak of, not much in the way of turn. Lyon got his wickets because the batsmen played for spin and the ball didn’t and stayed a little bit low sometimes, so those who are prone to LBW will have issues.

This pitch is dead and just like how it was in the third test in Sri Lanka when it was flag and what does hohns do when there is a flat pitch in Asia he drops khawaja, and that for a all rounder who bowled 4 overs yesterday

Ross is correct, if Hilton is picked as a batsman then this is absurd selection, khawaja is a world class player and as usual is made the scapegoat for any loss even though all other batsman minus warner failed. Also though Shane Warne performed well in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Warne has a miserable record in India and actually Warne should worry about his record in Asia. But Nice Garry is awesome in India. He is having three five wickets haul in India and Goat bettered his personal best twice in India. But still Nice Garry has to be a match winner. Unlike Warne Lyons has done a really small amount of work for the victory of Australia.

Cartwright is a relief bowler more than anything. Even if he plays in home tests I doubt he’d bowl more than 8-10 overs in an innings. He’s basically a pure batsman who is a useful bowler; he bats in the top four for WA.

He was too full, every ball; he couldn’t get the ball to dip, the way he usually could, and he bowled to left handers around the wicket, when he had footmarks from Cummins – already – to bowl to left handers over the wicket.

Either the coaching/captaincy was dead wrong – they told him to keep it tight or to bowl defensively, to give Cummins and others a rest – or O’Keefe has had so little practice that he’s genuinely worse than if we’d brought Swepson in.

I reckon with his round arm action that he needs a decent amount of cricket to find rhythm. Pretty easy to get it wrong when you’re not bowling straight up and down like a Lyon or Agar. He is massively underdone.

I thought Cartwright looked better than his limited spell in Sydney. Hopefully he continues to improve with the ball

No he is not a good allrounder. He is a top order batsman with a first class average last season over 50 who happens to be able to roll his arm over. My post indicates that he showed some improvement with the ball from his Sydney test and that further improvement would be great to see. He doesn’t need to be constantly neating the bat to be improving.

He has already contributed more in this test than Khawaja did in the first.

Its interesting to note that the moment a good batting pitch is on display they drop khawaja, i look forward to reading his book after retirement as surely there is a tint of discrimination once again. And let me understadn this, So we weakened our batting so Cartwright could bowl 5 overs. In a match following one where our batting let us down. Why do our selectors never learn from their mistakes? It’s a good batting pitch, Lyon did extremely well, BD needs to score 350+ to save the match.

Have you entertained the possibility that the selectors believe they have strengthened the batting by picking a guy with a first class average over 50 to replace a guy coming off a pair of ones and who is finding run scoring in these conditions difficult? Cartwright wasn’t picked to bowl 5 overs. How about we wait till he bats and keep in mind that if he edges his first ball through slips for 4 he has contributed 200% of what Khawaja did with the bat in the first test

The Bangas need 350 to save the match? Really? With a score of over 300 today most likely there is no pressure on them at all. With our previous test where we scored 217 & 244 or thereabouts & let’s see how we perform, will we get anywhere near 300? Remains to be seen. Let’s hope i am wrong.

Have to agree. SOK was sitting on the couch a week ago. Cricketers need preparation. I thought Cartwright looked handy for a part-timer. We have to remember he also hasn’t played since March.
Overall the pitch looks pretty good to bat on, so I’ll go against the tide and say that they’re doing quite well.
Just remember, Test matches consist of 4 innings.

Dunno about failing to capitalise. Maybe they are lucky to be in such a great position because Lyon is in such great form.

Feel sorry for Cummins with no pace bowling support. Did they forget he’s come back from 6 years of injury and what not? To be fair to the selectors they probably didn’t anticipate heat exhaustion but then again they probably should have.

We need to allow Ronan his hyperbole; he writes articles once a week, and needs something to talk about. At least he’s at least nominally discussing what actually happened, unlike most of David Lloyd’s articles.

Possible for the Aussies to score 300 or more sounds great i am with you George we will be lucky to score up to 265 it’s obvious a few have been dreaming but in the long run thinking big is a good way to go but putting into fruition is another hurdle if we do score 300 the drinks are on me.

I don’t think Cummins needs pace bowling support in these conditions, he just needs bowling support and he’s got plenty of it. The spinners will do the hard yards, he just needs short, sharp spells.
I blame CA for the result of this series. We need to start treating overseas tours with respect and actually organise proper tour games as a lead up for the players to acclimatise to put up the best showing they can.